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Forums Serious Talk Thinking about restarting

Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:05:01 )
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With a company I used to be a consultant for...

They sell specialized bottles of liqueurs, oils, vinegars, dukkahs, himalayan salts and spices...

I was with them a couple years ago and have just found out nobody in my area does it anymore. Only thing is it costs $211 to sign up and buy your kit.

What do you guys think? Should I give it a go?

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Donator — She/Her Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:09:21 )
Uhh...I mean, I'm sure you know it better than I would, but frankly it's setting off all kinds of alarms in my head just because of the buying your kit nonsense. It sounds like an MLM garbage set up where you only make money by taking advantage of everyone in your life until everyone hates you for abusing your relationships to sell ala those crappy essential oil companies, cutco, etc.
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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:50:18 )
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@Slytherclaw: To a point yes, it is a party plan or online ordering system so you have to try and get people interested in the product, but I was also thinking of targeting lawyers, real estates, etc... They usually give a gift to home buyers like a bottle of wine and these are sparkling wines with 24c edible gold flakes through them so they look stunning :3

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Donator — Lewd <3 Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:52:19 )
Yeah companies like this don't make their money selling to lawyers, estate agents, etc... they make their money selling to you. xD
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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:54:58 )
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@Alia Starchild: Nahh its not a MLM... Ive heard of those and I wouldnt be interested.

You host parties with people or take orders from people or companies, and you earn commission on the sales... It's like Tupperware but it's alcohol and spices etc :3

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Donator — Lewd <3 Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 08:56:03 )
@Paranoia: All righty then, just be sure to do your due diligence before dropping two hundred dollars on something. xD
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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 09:15:06 )
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@Alia Starchild: Well I have done it before and it went quite well I just worry about starting fresh again lol

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Donator — She/Her Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/27 11:11:01 )
@Paranoia: sound like a cool job if you can do all of that, like get people to buy the stuff
that you are selling, and if you have the money to sign up I say go for it
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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/28 06:16:39 )
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@SirLionelNigelConrad: Have you ever had a job where it doesnt cost money to make money?

Uniforms... Vehicle expenses and fuel to commute, sometimes stationary, laundering costs...

Staying at home and looking like shit is much cheaper but not many jobs allow you to do that...

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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/28 16:51:52 )
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@SirLionelNigelConrad: Ohhh nah that's not how it works... If I had to hold the stock myself I wouldn't be even remotely interested.

Your kit is simply a small range of products you use to show the customers in real life what the products look like, and can provide taste samples to customers to encourage a sale. Ultimately, the company doesn't give these kits away for free because they want to ensure people are going to actually attempt to make sales. However, for the $211 (including postage), you receive just over $500 worth of products to be able to show customers.

When I last did this, just one demonstration (which took me approximately 90 minutes) netted $1200 in sales, which are purchased from the company directly. I then receive a commission payment of 25%, which totaled $300. Not every demonstration is this good, and sometimes you can get customers who simply order online directly from the company and you receive commission simply for keeping your facebook page updated with specials to entice sales.

Regardless, once the kit is purchased I am simply encouraging sales and earning a commission on those sales. It's essentially my own business, but I don't have to outlay for stock itself to sell - only items to demonstrate.

But you are correct in that it is higher risk than a normal day-to-day job, in that I don't earn an hourly wage and if there are no sales I don't earn money. Buuut this is how I prefer to work, as we already own a Removals business. I'm not an "employee" kinda guy, I'd rather earn bigger dollars in my own business than a set rate of $15-18 per hour putting in huge amounts of work for somebody else to profit off me. O:

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Donator — Whatever Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/28 17:49:28 )
To be honest, it sounds like you are already set on doing it, so I don't see how our opinions are really going to sway you except give you further encouragement to actually do it. So with that in mind, if you feel like you'll be profitable, go for it.
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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/29 16:09:05 )
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@Quoth the Raven: Sorry if it seemed I had an answer to everything, I wanted opinions based on what the company actually is, and it seemed people were misinterpreting how things worked :3 I'm still not completely sure myself, but didn't want the negative opinions to be because people were unsure how things went. ^^

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Donator — MOOCOW Posted 7 years ago ( 2017/10/29 16:15:06 )
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@SirLionelNigelConrad: Well, replenishment would depend on how you sample as such... So the bottles themselves you would only need to purchase again if you were to break them, or if it were a bottle you want to show but don't have yet (and I already have some which aren't in the kit, from items I've purchased prior).

When you purchase the kit, all bottles come filled with a product - Either liqueur, oil, vinegar, etc. If you give out samples with diligence, and don't overdo it, they would last you a fair while. You can then purchase 750ml bottles of liqueur for $20 each as a consultant, to refill your bottles to use as samples. So if you think that each sample would potentially be 5ml (1/6 of a shot), there are potentially 150 taste tests in each bottle. Therefore costing approximately 14c per sample which you give to a customer.

So there is some type of replenishment cost, but if you are replenishing too often compared to orders you are receiving, you are doing something wrong. Ultimately these costs also come from your commission, but your commission payments should pretty much 75% be payment to you then reserve 25% for stock, fuel to get to parties, etc...

If that works out, it could be fairly profitable. The thing which worries me is being able to locate persons interested in parties, or hopefully approaching businesses and talking them into purchasing the product. As I said, when we purchased a house for my mother in law, there was a bottle of wine with the keys when we picked them up - That's the type of corporate order I would be looking to try to secure, to make it more of a profit without giving tastings as such. :3

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